Netflix Retrospective - ReBoot: The Guardian Code season 2 episodes 7-10

Ok, we are nearing the end of this series, thank god, but things have changed, Megabyte is free, and the Sourcerer knows about Alan Turing high school, we have 4 episodes still to fill, so here’s hoping they’re good… Can’t say that with a straight face.

Mega-Viral

We open with Megabyte trimming through his sentinels ready to embrace his new-found freedom. The Sourcerer is doing his research on the school and monologuing more, he’s found their location and begins to make his journey there, armed with his personal network, the Nova X3J.

Equally as important, we get a montage of basketball playing by Trey. It’s been uploaded to his social media to up his chances of getting into college. He may be a star player but colleges need a reason to look for him, especially given how new the school is.

Megabyte makes an attack on social media city, planning to use it as their new hub, he infects the entire city and even begins to be seen in billboards in the real world and the light. Trey and Vera discuss using an algorithm to give a new video a bunch more views than it actually got, ok… Here’s a better idea, one of your crew is a semi-popular blogger, she made waves enough to host an awards ceremony, she got in contact with a fitness magazine, she must have reach that could help you.

Agent Nance, the head of the DIS instructs a subordinate to hold off on engaging counter-measures against Megabyte, expecting Dark Code to show up. The Guardians begin their attack, easily dispatching the sentinels. Googz uses a replicator mod to make it appear like the sentinels are still there. 

Unfortunately, it only lasts so long and soon they’re being swarmed. Megabyte is curious to his impact in the User’s world. The codex keeps the sentinels busy as the Guardians make their approach on Megabyte. The Sourcerer hears from the news that they consider Megabyte in the same league, something he takes offence to.

“Fair and Balanced, now this is news I can trust, unlike all that fake news”

You’re a computer virus, what do you know about fake news?! D-Frag taunts Megabyte, as he mentions his infection didn’t stretch into Upsend, Megabyte leaves his post to correct that as Googz begins to use his virus extraction tool. Agent Nance sees the Guardian Code on her screen and approves the use of their countermeasures. It stops Googz’s extraction tool but scrubs the system anyway.

They manage to trap Megabyte, but leave it to the DIS to arrest him and take him to Virusylum. The whole experience for some reason makes Trey rethink the idea of getting a social media boost. Look, getting bot views to rack up your view count, I understand why that can be thought of as immoral, but have Tamra sez share some of your content, for crying out loud.

Tamra even offers to help at the end of the episode. The Sourcerer is 2 days away from the school and did nothing of consequence all episode. Megabyte gets a visit from Hexadecimal, she learns about the users world, and wants in with Megabyte, as equal partners. Megabyte accepts and cue that for the series finale.

Why would viruses be allowed visitors from other prisoners?

Anyway, it’s a dumb episode, so what else is new

Rating 5/10

Great Escapes

Megabyte and Hexadecimal prepare their escape. As we see Judy Carter (Austin’s mother) flout the laws of patient confidentiality. I don’t care where the abscess is, it’s still TMI. Mark tries to find out how things are going Guardian-wise but cryptic answers are all he gets as the team don’t trust him and know the DIS want their tech. Vera gets a Megabyte alert as sentinels begin attack on the Virusylum. Thanks to the cat virus, Hexadecimal breaks herself and Megabyte out, she then instructs the cat to set the other viruses free too.

Nance orders her men to try and contain the Guardian code when it arrives, to the expense of Megabyte if need be. They successfully capture Vector and Enigma, and get Virusylum under control, with only Megabyte and Hexadecimal actually escaping. Nance begins to analyse their code, and Vera believes the only person that can help them now is Mark. Rather than say, sending a message from Austin’s phone, it’s up to Parker to summon him.

Nance tells her subordinate that no-one can know what they have, which is why they’re doing this in what looks like an IT classroom as opposed to an office. There are people walking around them, well within earshot. She’s lost faith in Mark, citing his new relationship. Parker tries to get Mark’s attention outside the house, with potentially embarrassing results.

He eventually does get contact with Mark but isn’t happy to hear that a rescue plan would require D-Frag to get captured as well. D-Frag gets himself captured as planned. Mark’s plan is to crash Virusylum’s server, he’s put measures in place so it can’t be traced back but it will only buy them a short amount of time to escape.

Unfortunately, Judy spots Mark on the computer with Parker, he uses a pathetic excuse to get her to back off. The server soon comes back on line, but the Guardians manage to escape. Unfortunately, it’s still possible they can trace Mark’s involvement, even with his countermeasures and they have all the reason to as the data from the scan at least partially matches earlier drafts of Adam Carter’s code.

Megabyte and Hexadecimal head to the ‘deep web’ a decrepit sector where they can lay low and allow their plans to incubate. But things seem to be coming to a head as the Sourcerer arrives at the school.

The insistence on making every episode a done-in-one whilst serving the larger arc hurts this show greatly. Everything feels rushed.

Rating 6/10

Identity Theft

We open with a bunch of salvage workers (pirates) coming across a code-ball during their work. Turns out Judy has the been the victim of identity theft, someone used her card to buy 52 laptops, worth of $26000. This is why credit cards tend to have credit limits.

Agent Nance is checking their progress on the identity theft with the one guy who handles literally everything. She then turns to Mark, wondering why there’s no progress at his end. Nance wants progress or else.

Meanwhile the Sourcerer is in the school, and begins tracing the Guardian code. He’s across the room where Room Zero is and discovers that is really isn’t there. The Guardians take notice and Austin goes to confront him, finally seeing the Sourcerer face to face and realising that it’s his father. Hands up if you saw this coming

As I suspected. The Sourcerer runs off with the others giving chase but he gets away. Vera says a duplicate was made using the same tech that made her before his father’s death, so they theorise he used a body double to fake his own death and get Nance of the trail. Of course, this doesn’t explain why he’s now the Sourcerer.

Austin gets a message from Mark wanting to meet. Austin goes to the meeting hoping to find out more, leaving the others to stop the piracy ring. Googz, Enigma and D-Frag find the trawling programme, but finds the code sphere on it so hold off attacking it from the Codex. They quickly have the code-ball but they’re spotted and the pirate-bots begin to overwhelm them.

Unfortunately for the Austin, the text message was a trap of sorts. Nance wants him interrogated and Mark warns him not to tell her anything. He arranged this presumably to keep his job. I do feel like it sends a pretty poor message to have the ultimate bad guys of the series be the CIA version of anti-virus software. They’re a generic evil entity but because this is a kid’s show they can’t do anything violent in the real world, so Nance’s interrogation comes off as hollow. I still don’t know why it would be such a bad thing for them to have the tech, why Adam didn’t trust them to use it. Yes, I know they were willing to kill them to get their hands on the code, but that’s not enough, they’ve been trying to fight Megabyte and the sorcerer, same as the guardians.

With the Guardian Code showing up with the pirates, Mark convinces Nance to let Austin go, and gives him the warning that they’re being overwhelmed by the pirates. He had held onto the phone so Nance didn’t see the warning herself. Vector arrives just in time to help them, using a new power to help facilitate their escape. They begin blowing up the pirate barges but the DIS arrive and finish the job. Somehow this whole escapade lead to them making dozens of arrests, no idea how they managed that, but the ring is disabled and Judy’s credit rating remains in-tact.

The final codeball is decrypted. Adam was in cyber-space investigating the dark code when it turned hostile and breached his suit, that’s how he became the sourcerer. Austin feels a need to get at him, thanks to a brief moment where he turned during the first encounter.

The whole pirate arc felt really out of place, since the real meat was with the Sourcerer and the DIS

Rating 6.5/10

Black Hole

The Sourcerer unveils his ultimate weapon, a *sigh* cyber black hole. Adam is able to break through for a brief moment, trying to stop himself. Austin’s at his father’s grave with the Sourcerer right behind him. It’s a touching awkward reunion, especially in light of what’s to come. He tells Austin the only way to get the code out is to get him back into Cyber-space and yeah, that isn’t at all suspect. Of course, Austin falls for this, but calls in the whole team for backup.

Austin shows him Room Zero but the Sourcerer feigns another attack to get them to hurry up, tasing Austin to ensure he doesn’t follow. He arrives at the ‘cyber black hole’ and uses the Codec’s weapons to expand it further. They have less than 2 hours before the entirety of the internet is wiped out and ‘humanity is sent back to the dark ages’

There’s a backup entry into the system that Adam managed to activate in that brief moment he wasn’t the sorcerer. Alyx is soon gone as the DIS arrive to intercept, their attack fails but gives a moment for Adam to open a back door to the Codec. Austin heads back to use it but debris forces the others close to the Black Hole and they’re begins sucked in. Adam gets another break and saves them but soon the Sourcerer takes over again.

Austin makes it aboard the Codec and helps Adam break free again. This time it seems to be more permanent. Adam decides the only way forward now is for him to sacrifice himself to stop the cyber black hole. The Guardians distract the DIS ships to allow Vera and Adam to get work, utilising a failsafe built into the codec. It works and the cyber black hole is sealed.

It’s far from a happy ending for Austin, but it’s possible he could come back again, he holds hope at least. There’s a bit of reminiscing but enough of that, let’s get to the sequel baiting we all know is coming. Megabyte and Hexadecimal are credited in this episode, and they haven’t shown up yet, so…

Megabyte and Hexadecimal have returned to their fortress, promising a new dawn for their kind. The DIS have found the Sourcerer’s van, but no sign of the NOVA-X3J, hinting that Adam, or the Sourcerer may have already found it.

It’s a serviceable finale, fulfilling the emotional moments it needs and providing stakes, even if the action is pretty poor.

Rating 6.5/10

ReBoot: The Guardian Code is not a good show. The fight dialogue is terrible, the human drama is cliché and predictable, with many of the involved characters either annoying or blank slates, the threat of the week distracts from the ongoing narrative and none of the villains in the human world have any established motivation to do anything that they do.

The animation is not of great quality either, the backgrounds are relatively boring and the action is generally underwhelming. The Guardians seem to be able to plough through sentinels and robots at one time and get overwhelmed by them in others without any real reason.

It’s understanding of the internet and how it works is poor, it has to jump through hoops to justify any of its plots, sometimes really missing the mark like with the weather satellite thing. It’s over-simplified and laughable, but the need to re-use sets somewhat necessitates this. That said, it’s just corny enough that you could enjoy in a so bad it’s good capacity 

I somehow doubt ReBoot is getting a third season after this showing. It’s been generally despised by both critics and audiences and I do understand why.